Tags: Retrospective Interview; Robert J. Woodhead; Sir-Tech; Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds; Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn; Wizardry IV: The Return of Werdna; Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
At the RPG Codex, we have occasionally done interviews in which we asked CRPG developers about their past work. But now we have decided to turn these "retrospective" interviews into a proper (if irregular) series, focusing on seminal titles and designers as well as forgotten gems and unsung heroes.
To start things off, we present our interview with Robert Woodhead, the co-creator of Wizardry, one of the most revered series here on the Codex, and a pioneer of the industry. Wizardry was a huge success for Sir-Tech, and it continues to inspire video game designers to this day. In this interview, Robert talks about some of the design and coding decisions behind Wizardry, nerds, groupies, and related matters. Have a snippet:
Heh, the story of a Codexer's life.
We are extremely grateful to Robert Woodhead for taking his time to do this interview. Stay tuned for more retrospective interviews in the future!
Be sure to read the full article: RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Robert Woodhead.
P.S. Thanks to cboyardee, MMXI, Alex, Zed, and JarlFrank for their criticism and suggestions on the first version of the questions!
At the RPG Codex, we have occasionally done interviews in which we asked CRPG developers about their past work. But now we have decided to turn these "retrospective" interviews into a proper (if irregular) series, focusing on seminal titles and designers as well as forgotten gems and unsung heroes.
To start things off, we present our interview with Robert Woodhead, the co-creator of Wizardry, one of the most revered series here on the Codex, and a pioneer of the industry. Wizardry was a huge success for Sir-Tech, and it continues to inspire video game designers to this day. In this interview, Robert talks about some of the design and coding decisions behind Wizardry, nerds, groupies, and related matters. Have a snippet:
How would you describe the atmosphere of working in the video game industry in the beginning of the 1980s, and how did it change over the years that you were active in the industry?
In the early days, we were very isolated; the only time we really interacted with other creators was at conferences and conventions. The rate of change during that period was very slow due to the lack of communication -- a 1200 baud modem was the gold standard!
How did your decision to leave the industry after you parted ways with Sir-Tech come about? Have you ever thought of going back to designing video games?
I actually moved to Japan to build what would have been one of the first MMOs (code-named "Sunday"), in the early 90s, but the project lost funding when Japan's economic bubble burst. But at the same time, AnimEigo grew from a fun weekend project into a real company, so things worked out. And the girl I was chasing after allowed me to catch her.
It might be fun to work on another game, but it would probably have to be in a design role. I still program quite a lot but I'm a lone-wolf coder; I've never worked in a big programming team.
Did you code the first four Wizardry games by yourself? What programming challenges did you face that you were most proud of overcoming?
I did the code for the first 4 games. The most interesting hacks I did were the copy-detection system, and the "Window Wizardry" retrofit that added overlapping windows to the UI, which got done from idea to implementation in a single 80-hour coding marathon.
Were there any design ideas that you wanted to implement in the series but had to reject because of programming or other technical considerations?
Not really.
One thing I wanted to do was set up the game so that if it detected it had been copied, and there was a modem attached to the computer, it would wait until it had been idle for a while and then call us up and drop a dime on the pirate. And of course it could be a 900 number... : ) But wiser heads prevailed.
The early Wizardry titles were first developed for Apple II and then ported to other platforms. How did you go about this process?
We wrote Apple Pascal p-code interpreters for each target machine. That plus a little assembly language code to abstract the graphics did the trick. We also had a text localization system that moved all the text in the game into a database; it got done for the Japanese localizations and permitted us to create any message we needed on the fly, with all the variable parts inserted into the right places.
In Wizardry I, the player did not even have to explore half of the dungeon levels in order to beat the game. What prompted the decision to leave so many levels unused?
I think we underestimated how fast people would power-level -- and at the time, nobody knew what power-leveling was. So while there were shortcuts, we expected they would be used only after people had explored all but the final level.
Can you share your favorite anecdote or piece of trivia from the days you were working on the Wizardry series?
When the industry first got started, all the programmers thought we'd be the rock stars of the '80s, complete with groupies.
Well, it turned out we were right about the groupies. Unfortunately, they all looked just like us -- nerdy guys. : (
In the early days, we were very isolated; the only time we really interacted with other creators was at conferences and conventions. The rate of change during that period was very slow due to the lack of communication -- a 1200 baud modem was the gold standard!
How did your decision to leave the industry after you parted ways with Sir-Tech come about? Have you ever thought of going back to designing video games?
I actually moved to Japan to build what would have been one of the first MMOs (code-named "Sunday"), in the early 90s, but the project lost funding when Japan's economic bubble burst. But at the same time, AnimEigo grew from a fun weekend project into a real company, so things worked out. And the girl I was chasing after allowed me to catch her.
It might be fun to work on another game, but it would probably have to be in a design role. I still program quite a lot but I'm a lone-wolf coder; I've never worked in a big programming team.
Did you code the first four Wizardry games by yourself? What programming challenges did you face that you were most proud of overcoming?
I did the code for the first 4 games. The most interesting hacks I did were the copy-detection system, and the "Window Wizardry" retrofit that added overlapping windows to the UI, which got done from idea to implementation in a single 80-hour coding marathon.
Were there any design ideas that you wanted to implement in the series but had to reject because of programming or other technical considerations?
Not really.
One thing I wanted to do was set up the game so that if it detected it had been copied, and there was a modem attached to the computer, it would wait until it had been idle for a while and then call us up and drop a dime on the pirate. And of course it could be a 900 number... : ) But wiser heads prevailed.
The early Wizardry titles were first developed for Apple II and then ported to other platforms. How did you go about this process?
We wrote Apple Pascal p-code interpreters for each target machine. That plus a little assembly language code to abstract the graphics did the trick. We also had a text localization system that moved all the text in the game into a database; it got done for the Japanese localizations and permitted us to create any message we needed on the fly, with all the variable parts inserted into the right places.
In Wizardry I, the player did not even have to explore half of the dungeon levels in order to beat the game. What prompted the decision to leave so many levels unused?
I think we underestimated how fast people would power-level -- and at the time, nobody knew what power-leveling was. So while there were shortcuts, we expected they would be used only after people had explored all but the final level.
Can you share your favorite anecdote or piece of trivia from the days you were working on the Wizardry series?
When the industry first got started, all the programmers thought we'd be the rock stars of the '80s, complete with groupies.
Well, it turned out we were right about the groupies. Unfortunately, they all looked just like us -- nerdy guys. : (
Heh, the story of a Codexer's life.
We are extremely grateful to Robert Woodhead for taking his time to do this interview. Stay tuned for more retrospective interviews in the future!
Be sure to read the full article: RPG Codex Retrospective Interview: Robert Woodhead.
P.S. Thanks to cboyardee, MMXI, Alex, Zed, and JarlFrank for their criticism and suggestions on the first version of the questions!
